Conservation

Last fall, farmers working the flat land along the Colorado River outside Blythe, Calif., harvested a lucrative crop of oranges, lettuce and alfalfa from fields irrigated with river water. But that wasn't their only source of income. They made almost as much per acre from the seemingly dead squares of dry earth abutting those orchards and row crops, fields left barren for the season. The money crop that the fallowed land produced was one of the West's most precious commodities: water. Under an experimental trading scheme set up by the Palo Verde Irrigation District in Blythe and the Metropolitan Water District — which supplies municipal water to the Los Angeles area, Orange...

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Among many others in the media, Baltimore Sun reporter Luke Broadwater has been on the odd story of Democratic state Del. Frank M. Conaway Jr.'s astoundingly bizarre YouTube videos, in which the West Baltimore scion of his parents' longstanding local...

ARIES (March 21-April 19): The driest place on the planet is the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. It gets about a half-inch of rain per year. And yet in 2011, archaeologists discovered that it’s also home to a site containing the fossilized skeletons...

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Timothy Sinnigen set up a fake Facebook account, posing as drug defendant Sondra Arquiett, and used it to post Arquiett's photos and send out friend requests, including to a fugitive—all without Arqueitt's...

Come Oct. 1, people in Maryland caught with less than 10 grams of pot or less will no longer face criminal penalties, thanks to the April 7 passage of a marijuana-decriminalization bill in the Maryland General Assembly, which Gov. Martin O’Malley (D)...

ARIES (March 21-April 19): As I hike through the wilderness at dusk, the crickets always seem to be humming in the distance. No matter where I go, their sound is farther off, never right up close to me. How can that be? Do they move away from me as I...

Melissa Gira Grant’s debut book “Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work” (Verso) isn’t merely a sobering dissection of how sex work and sex workers are policed and understood in contemporary America, where a woman’s sexual value can be conflated with her...

Sometime CP contributor Andrew Zaleski has an interesting take in Politico on Uber's fight with the Maryland Public Service Commission—the only one (so far) that has ruled the ride-sharing company to be a livery provider subject to applicable regulations....

Amanda Schmidt and Stewart Mostofsky, the organizers of Fields Festival, an arty mindfuck of a D.I.Y. music fest set against the backdrop of a literal summer camp in Darlington, Maryland this weekend, gather at Red Emma’s and describe with increasing,...

The Baltimore City fire marshal fined an assisted-living facility $2,500 for bolting five separate doors shut last week, after a medical call brought inspectors in for an unscheduled inspection.
“They abated the problem,” Baltimore City Fire...

Heather Mizeur at Spro in Hampden. Notice the empty coffee cup. (Photo by J.M. Giordano)[/caption] Early voting has ended and all that's left in the primaries is Election Day on Tuesday, June 24th. City Paper caught up with upstart Democratic candidate...

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Martin O’Malley
Love him or hate him, this has been a good year for Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley (D). Two O’Malley-backed laws got the nods of the majorities of Maryland voters in last fall’s elections—one granting gay-marriage...

Beartown State Park. Near Hillsboro, W. Va., (304) 653-4254, www.beartownstatepark.com. Known for its unusual rock formations rather than any actual bears, Beartown is over 100 acres and rich with trails and beautiful sites. Free to visit and open...

Almost a year after Baltimore City Schools CEO Andrés Alonso left Baltimore, some city officials and nonprofit leaders are quietly trying to change a central pillar of his leadership policy. The battle has so far played out politely and behind...

ARIES (March 21-April 19) On my 15th birthday, I finally figured out that eating dairy products was the cause of my chronic respiratory problems. From that day forward, I avoided foods made from cow's milk. My health improved. I kept up this regimen for...

The wood-grilled whole dorado, at $34, is the highest-priced dish on the current menu at Pazo, the casually elegant restaurant in Fells Point in Baltimore. Executive chef Mario Cano Catalan gushes about the restaurant's specimens of the high-value...

A couple minutes into meeting up with Tate Kobang at the Inner Harbor, the 21-year-old Baltimore rapper begins explaining how his mother relocated him as a teenager to York, Pa., for better education opportunities. The resources at Central York High...

My trusty handheld GPS helps keep me safe while kayaking, letting me know precisely where I am on a map. But bringing it along on kayaking trips, it turns out, can serve more than my own personal safety: It's also a useful tool to map the land-devouring...

The Feb. 26 rally on Lawyers Mall in Annapolis made the TV news. Del. Curtis "Curt" Anderson (D-Baltimore), Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Andres Alonso, and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake were among the officials making the case for...

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One summer in the early 1990s, as I settled into my job as a reporter for the Hartford, Conn., Advocate, the Hartford City Council took a junket to Baltimore to observe the wonders of the Inner Harbor. All returned pleased by the spectacle, and discussion...